It looks like we may have to stop slagging so much on WingNutDaily, guys. It turns out that they were named one of America’s “most trustworthy news sources” by an “independent news organization” that carefully ranked news organizations for their “reliability, accuracy, quality, balance and reach.” WND came in second only to the Drudge Report, and its trustworthiness was determined to be greater than other honorees such as The Blaze, Ghost Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, NewsBusters, The Weekly Standard, and, at number eight, some thing called “The Wall Street Journal.”

The award from “The Discerning Times” singled out WND for its “continual commitment to the truth and top-notch journalistic practices.” The citation doesn’t specify which of WND’s many outstanding journalistic endeavors earned the honor, because it’s more of an overall-bestness-of-excellentosity kind of thing, but we’re betting it was their exposé of Barack Obama’s gay-sexing of Islam, or possibly their post-election discovery of a clever loophole in the Constitution that could have nullified Barack Obama’s reelection if everybody just believed hard enough. Or maybe it was their stunning revelation that before gay homosexual black muslim drug dealer Barack Obama was forced to marry Michelle for appearances, she was a lazy layabout black lady who never worked and was also shiftless.

Say, did we mention that one of the criteria for the award was that stories be reported without any “bias or agenda”?

The Discerning Times (Motto: “We Are Not A Bunch Of Cranks”) is a web outgrowth of an Enumclaw, Washington, freebie newspaper which bills itself as “an independent Christian newspaper, [which] strives to reflect the love of Jesus Christ.” Among its guiding principles (each supported by a Bible verse!) is the promise that “The news reported results from the fullest research possible. (Deuteronomy 13:14).”

That particular passage has this admirable guidance for journalists: “Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently,” which is good, right? Of course, as alert Wonketteer Guppy, slaving away in the Wonkville mines, points out, it takes on a slightly different meaning in context. The full passage is a warning about how to deal with members of the community who fall into heresy and say “Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known”:

Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.